Undergraduate Student Engagement in an Introductory Course in Vegetable Gardening: Do Students from Urban and Rural Localities Differ?

Abstract

The population of the United States has been shifting from rural to urban. It is possible that the increasingly urban population of the United States could lead to fewer numbers of young people choosing farming and related fields as their vocations. In horticultural teaching programs, there is a need to attract students with academic talent and an interest in agriculture to prepare a future workforce and leaders. We measured the engagement of students using a modified version of “The National Survey for Student Engagement” in a vegetable gardening course at the University of Florida during Fall 2014. Sixty one non-major students participated in the study. Participants were asked to provide their zip code of where they grew up in order to generate population data and answer questions relating to their engagement. Fifty-four participants were from Florida with approximately 75% being from urban areas. Our findings indicate that the environment where students are from may have little impact on their engagement in the course, but the relatedness of their major to horticulture was better correlated to their level of engagement.